Birthday Party!

If anyone would like to join us for some of the following, we'd love to have you

(especially the Thompson's)

I think I shall ask for the red one in the center for my bday

Shanna and I are celebrating our 25th birthday all weekend Nov. 14, 15 and 16.

I guess that's the excellent part about my twin living so far away--- when she comes home we get to party all weekend! So, on Friday we will be going to Park Lanes Family Entertainment Center for bowling. I think we will be there around 7:30pm or 8pm.

Saturday, we're having a small dinner at Le Hana with our significant others (John and Aaron).

I plan on eating a lot of sushi

After dinner, my sister's wish is to go to a wine bar in downtown Portland for some wine tasting. I don't quite know if I will make it as my bed time is usually 9:30pm and I never ever do so many fun things in one weekend. I will try my hardest to not yawn.

On Sunday, my parents are hosting a intimate family dinner for 18 people. I don't know what I want to request to eat. The birthday people always get to request the meal. And then if you are twin, you get to request your two favorite meals even if they don't go together.

It's good to be me

politically persuasive?

Today is BIG day. Barack Obama will be our president soon. If you voted for him or not, this is an amazing day in US history. I'm so proud and excited. I'm ready for change.

I'm not one of those involved political people that recruits their friends to vote a certain way or spends time on the phone, email, blog trying to persuade votes this way or that. I firmly believe we all get to decide what we want. I don't want anyone pushing me. I won't push anyone else. So, now that the voting is over, I just have to say how grateful I am that Measure 58 and Measure 60 were shot down. Phew, I was worried, phew, I prayed and phew I sweated.

Measure 58 would limit the use of foreign language instruction in public schools to: 1 year for students in kindergarten to 4th grade. 1.5 years for 5th grade through 8th grade. 2 years for high school students. It would also prohibit ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching programs for longer than the mandated time.

my note: research shows that full mastery of a second language takes 5-7 years

Measure 60 states that teacher pay raises and job security shall be based on job performance. Pay raises for public school teachers shall be based upon each teacher’s classroom performance and not related or connected to his or her seniority. Note: "Classroom performance" and "most qualified" are not defined in the measure.

my note: had this measured passed it could have led to teacher pay being connected to standardized test scores, not student learning. It is widely known that standardized tests are poor determinants of student learning. And what if you have that one class that are behind in reading, writing and math when you get them, that are always sick or absent...

I feel so strongly about these two measures. I am in Graduate School for Education. I'm so grateful that Oregon put down these two measures. Thank You.

ballot information found from http://www.ballotpedia.org/

Halloween

We went to downtown Hillsboro's Safe n' Sane Halloween. All the businesses pay highschool students to dress up and pass out candy in front of the stores. We had a great time and all the costumes were amazing. I think the most popular was some sort of animal- dogs, bugs, bees, cats, unicorns, cats... Pinkie was a DOGGY right down her to her feet!

I put a pink ribbon on her doggy ear so people would know she is a girl... it didn't work. Everyone kept saying 'oh there he goes', 'oh he makes a cute dog'... I was so annoyed by the end of the night. Don't you see the PINK ribbon people???

The candy was a big hit (see video below). She was up and hyper until 10pm last night.

Candy Tantrum